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ADDRESS 



NEW-YORK YOUNG MEN S 



ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 



TO THEIR FELLOW-CITIZENS, 



N E W . Y O R K : 
W. T. COOLIDGE & CO., 55 WALL-STKEET- 

W. S. DORK, PRINTER- 

1834. 



ADDRESS 



Fellow-Citizens. 

Fiftv-eight years have elapsed since our fatliers 
declared to the world the great fundamental doctrme 
of human freedom, that " all men are created equal, 
that they are endowed by their Creator with certam 
unalienable rii?hts; that among these are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness.'^ Sincere in this de- 
claration, they called God and the nations to witness 
their truth ; no hypocrisy lurked in their hearts, and 
their actions set the seal to then- professions. Scarcely 
had the war of independence been concluded, ere the 
citizens of the several states commenced a course 
of action calculated to abolish slavery, the only re- 
maining feature of that oppression which a foreign 
yoke had imposed upon them. The immortal names 
of Franklin and Rush are enrolled among the first 
officers of the Abolition Society of Pennsylvania. In 
New-York, names as illustrious were to be found m 
the same cause.— Jay, King, and Hamilton, were men 
Avho not only engaged in the contest for liberty during 
the Revolution, but were active in every eifort to effect 
the abolition of slavery after its conclusion, and the 
writings of the sage of Monticello contain abundant 
evidence of his strong aversion to slavery.* In Mas- 

♦ The foUowinK extract from Jefferson^s Notes on V.rgu.ia NviU sho^v whether tmie« 
have improved since that ,.?reat man flourished. If Mr. Jefferson were now ahve and. 



sachusetts, the name of Sedgwick is as distinguished 
for philanthropy towards the slave, as for genius, learn- 
ing, and patriotism. 

should venture such sentiments as these, is it probable that he would share a better 
fate than has befallen every man who has of late had the courage and conscience to 
plead the cause of the slave ? 

" It is difficult to determine on the standard by which the manners of a nation may 
he tried, whether catholic or particular. It is more difficult for a native to bring to 
that standard the manners of his own nation, familiarized to him by habit. There 
must doubtless he an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by 
the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave 
is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despo- 
tism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see 
this, and learn to imitate it ; for man is an imitative animal- This quality is the 
germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning t» do 
what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or 
his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should 
always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. 
The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the Uneaments of wrath, puts on the 
same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to his worst passions, and thus 
nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with 
odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and 
morals undepravcd by such circumstances. And with what execration should the 
statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the 
rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the 
morals of the one part, and the amor patriae of the other. For if a slave can have a 
country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to 
live and labor for another; in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, con- 
tribute as far as depends on his individual endeavors to the evanishment of the human 
race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations p.-oceeding from 
him. With the morals of the people their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm 
climate no man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him. This is 
eo true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen 
to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed 
their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are 
of the gift of God ? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath 1 Indeed, I 
tremble for my country when I refect that God is just ; that his justice cannot sleep 
forever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the 
wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events: that it may 
become probable by supernatural interference ! The Almighty has no attribute vhich 
can take side with us in such a contest. But it is impossible to be temperate and to 
pursue this subject through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history 
natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way info every 
one's mind. I think a change already perceptible, since the origin of the present 
revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave is rising from the 
dust, hie condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, 
for a total emancipation, and that this is disposed, in the order of events, to be with the 
consent of the masters, rather than by their extirpation." 



Opposition active and virulent, unprincipled and 
persevering, it must be admitted, was excited then, as 
well as now, not only by the avaricious and interested, 
but by many who ought to have been guides in virtue. 

But notwithstanding this opposition, the principles 
of liberty triumphed in the northern and middle states, 
and that they were advancing at the south until within 
the last twenty years is susceptible of demonstration.* 
They have, it is true, since that period been arrested 
in their progress, but their foundation is in eternal 
truth and in the very nature of the human mind. What 
if a treacherous affectation of philanthropy have misled 
the public ; discussion of the points at issue must result 
in the triumph of truth, justice, and humanity. Indeed 
whoever regards with attention the signs of the times, 
whether in relation to our own political position, the 
aspect of other nations, or the developments of pro- 

* " In 1790, the free colored people were 20,415 in all the States south of the 
Potomac and the Ohio. 

Iq 1800, they had increased to 32,604, or at the rate of 60 per cent. 

In 1810, they were 58,046, an increase of 78 per cent. 

In 1820, they amounted to 77,040 ; which is an enlargement of only 32 per cent. 

In 1830, the free colored people had increased to 112,708, which is an increase 
of 45 per cent 

So that by comparing the 26 years before the Colonization Society was insti. 
tuted, with the 14 years subsequent to its establishment, it appears that there was 
an average disproportion in the emancipation of slaves of 74 per cent, per annum 
to 32 ; or in other words, that the number of slaves annually liberated before the 
Colonization Society was formed, was at the rate of 7 to 3 emancipated since the 
year 1816, 

According to the previous enumerations and the advances of the free colored 
people before the Colonization Society was formed, the free colored people in 
1820, should have numbered 112,464 ; and in 1830, they should have increased to 
244,000 : whereas in 1830, they only amounted to the number which they should 
in ordinary course have attained in 1820." 

We merely adduce these statistics without comment; leaving it to the reader 
to decide what has been the practical effect of the Colonization scheme to which 
so many of the friends of human rights have heretofore looked with the sincere 
anticipation of good results. 



phecy, now on the eve of a glorious famiment, luusl 
come to the conclusion that the time is at hand when 
- the merchants of the earth" who have '' waxed rich" 
in the accursed traffic, shall no longer trade in " slaves 
and the souls of men."* 

The watchword of liberty and right, caught from 
\merica, was repeated with enthusiasm by the people 
of Europe :— Tlie blood of our fellow-creatures, and the 
treasures of empire have been lavished for the last 
half-centurv, by the nations, to obtain the blessmgs we 
enjoy To them America is the mornmg star of uni- 
versal liberty. That the clouds of slavery should dim 
her lustre, that the sounds of violence and T^'o should 
ascend from these shores of the free, is cause of grief to 
the friends of freedom in all lands. They grieve at our 
dereliction of the principles of our ancestors. Despo- 
tism mocks at our boasted liberty, and brands with 
hypocrisy our professions of freedom and republicanism. 
^ It is for us as Americans to wipe from the escutcheon 
of our country the only blot that stains it, to prove the 
sincerity of our principles, to establish not only our 
patriotism in giving liberty, the birth right of an Ameri- 
can to more than two millions of our own country- 
men in bondage, but to prove our philanthropy and 
religion, by delivering the poor and needy, by loosing 
the bands' of wickedness, by undoing the heavy bur- 
dens, by breaking every yoke, and by letting tlie op- 
pressed go free, t 

We contemplate a resort to no measures but tliose 
of argument and truth; and in the exercise of the 

t LctTrv Christ.an read and ponder the fifty-e.gluh chapter of Isaiah, if he 
would Icana ihe Divine will concerning oppression, and the Divine indignation 
against that kind of piety which is indifferent towards it. 



constitutional privileges of freedom of speech and free- 
dom of the press, we helieve that the light of truth may 
be so diffused as to destroy sLavery, a system which 
loves darkness because its deeds are evil. 

In discussing this subject, we purpose to prove- 
First, That slavery is a national evil, and requires 
to some extent a national remedy. 

Second, To show the true character of slavery as 
it exists in the United States, and 

Third, To propose and vindicate the remedy, viz : 
Immediate Emancipation, as enforced alike by expe- 
diency and duty. 

Fuit. Slavery is a national evil, and requires to 
some extent a national remedy. 

If slavery were a mere local abuse of one of the 
states of this Union, affecting only its own interests, 
and capable of being controlled by its own authority, 
it might, at least with some show of propriety, be 
urged'' that the interference of the citizens of another 
state were gratuitous and improper. But slavery is 
not only degrading to our character abroad as a nation, 
it is the great cancer of this Union, corrupting the 
moral, social, and political sympathies of the country, 
gnawing at the very heart of its welfare, threatening 
hi different forms immediate disunion and anarchy,* and 
laying the foundation of an ultimate separation of in- 
terests, deep in the very nature of things. 

Slavery is then a national concern m its nature and 
tendencies, but it is also sanctioned directly by Congress 
in the District of Columbia, and in the territories under 
the control of Congress. To remove slavery from these 

* Witness the Nullification of South Carolina, of which slavery, and not the 
TarilT, was confessedly the true carco. 



8 

portions of our country the national legislature is alone 
adequate, as they are entirely under the control of 
Congress in every respect. Every citizen of the United 
States is then equally interested and equally repre- 
sented in a government which sustains and perpetuates 
this enormous violation of those natural rights, the very 
foundation of all law, the protection of which gives to 
governments the only just authority over their subjects. 
Any law w hich violates the great principles of natural 
justice is essentially null and void, can be enforced only 
by violence, and contains within itself the elements 
of its own dissolution.* Our own happy government 
has been agitated to its foundations by disputes which, 
wliatever may be their form, have their substance in 
slavery only. But passing over that succession of 
measures by which the slave-holding interests have 
uniformly thwarted and crippled the industry of the 
northern and middle states, we contemplate with grief 
the crisis which must arrive in a confederated govern- 
ment, continually agitated by deeply opposed interest* 
of free and slave labor. Discontent, extravagance, and 
impoverishment, every wdiere prevail in slave-countries. 
The nominal wealth of the master, in the persons 
of his slaves, is no permanent source of support to his 
family, but on the contrary increases his care in providing 
for them, while the purchase money of the slave absorbs 
capital which might be much more profitably invested. 
Nothing is more certain, both in theory and fact, than 
that slavery is a cause of national poverty. It con- 

*"We hold these truths to be self-evident: — that all men are created equal, 
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights : that among 
thcBc are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights 
governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the 
governed." — [ Declaration of Independence-] 



verts the sinews of industry into the causes of want. 
The laborer, by this system is hardly worth his own 
support; while his voluntary toil would enrich both 
himself and his master. A deep seated hostility against 
the free is often engendered among slave-holders, 
which no concessions can assuage. It bursts forth, 
after every attempt to suppress it, with accunuilated 
energy ; the only effectual remedy for this evil being 
the establishment of a homogeneous interest, throughout 
this great nation, by the suppression of slavery. The 
emancipation of the slave, the elevation of oppressed 
humanity, and the increased productions of rewarded 
industry, are the proper and only remedies for the evils 
of this system. 

2d. Again, the evil of slavery is national, because 
the internal or domestic slave-trade, now carried on to 
an incredible extent, depends absolutely upon the 
authority of the general government.* The first article 

* The following opinions of the Rev. Robert J. Breckenridge, on the Constitutional 
power of Congress to abolish the slave-trade between the states, as well as slavery 
in the District of Columbia, are extracted from a communication in the N. Y. Evan- 
gehst of Oct. IS, 1834, under his own signature. We are pleased to find that the sen- 
timents of this distinguished gentleman on this most important subject of national 
welfare, are exactly in unison with those expressed in the Declaration of the Anti- 
Slavery Convention held in Philadelphia in Dec. 1833. In proof of which we will extract 
a few sentences from that document, on the subject in question: "We fully and 
unanimously recognize the sovereignty of each state, to legislate exclusively on the 
subject of the slavery which is tolerated within its limits ; we concede that Congress, 
under the present national compact, has no right to interfere with any of the slave 
states in relation to this momentous subject ; but we maintain that Congress has a 
right, and is solemnly bound, to suppress the domestic slave-trade between tlie several 
states, and to abolish slavery in those portions of our territory which thcCon.«titution 
has placed under its exclusive jurisdiction." 

Mr. Breckenridge, in the communication alluded to, says : — 

" I have continually held that this whole nation and world are bound to use all 
lawful means to put an end to slavery every where upon earth ; and that to do this 
we are all bound to us(! legal means where they exist, and moral means always. 

That the Congress of the United States lias power to abolish slavery in the District 

of Columbia, no reasonable man can doubt ; that this power should be exercised 

without delay, every humane man ought to admit. But that Congress possesses the 

power to abolish the domestic slave trade under that clause of the Federal Constitution 

2 



10 

(sect. 8,) of the Constitution declares that *' Congress 
shall have power to regulate commerce vv ith foreign 
nations and among the several states.'' The power to 
abolish both the foreign and domestic traffic in slaves 
is then derived from the same authority, and placed by 
this article on precisely the same footing. By virtue 
of this authority, Congress did abolish the foreign 

which (section viij, of art. 1,) confers authority to regulate cormnerce among the several 
States, I have never asserted; nor do I now assert it, nor yet deny it. I firmly be- 
lieve, however, that the ix. section of article 1, which is in these words, 'The migra- 
tion or importation of such persons, as any of the states now existing shall think 
proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior io the year 1808,' does 
expressly allow Congress to regulate, and if need be, prohibit, both impovtation from 
foreign countries, and emigration from state to state, of the persons intended in these 
words. Moreover, I consider that Congress has wisely and repeatedly in substance 
exercised these powers ; and I am ready to vindicate and uphold, as far as one man 
may, the future exercise of the same beneficent authority ; since I am fully convinced 
nothing would niorc efedually tend to sap the foundation of slarenj iit several of the 
slave states. 

It is clear to my mind, that each state has exclusive power to say whether or not 
slavery may continue in its borders ; yet it is equally clear that each state for itself, 
and CongTess for them all, has power to prevent the emigration and importation 
of slaves — or of any other persons, not being citizens of the state whence they 
migrate. 

So also, while no person, not a citizen in one state, has a right to set up any claim 
in another state, except under the le.r loci of the latter ; yet the third section of the 
iv. article expressly say.", that ' The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the 
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.' So that all laws that 
bear distindiveli/ and harshly on the free people of color, are void as to those already 
citizens of any state ; and may be made void as to all of them, by their all becoming 
entitled to citizenship, under the lex loci, in any state of this Union." 

We quote the above remarks with great pleasure, and while we agree fully as to the 
result of this gentleman's argument, we must observe, that his reasoning from the 
prohibitory section (9, of article 1,) appears to us defective. The prohibition of Congress 
from exercising a certain power previous to 1S08, in itself confers no power, even after 
that period, but implies as strongly as it is possible directly to express any idea, that 
without such temporary prohibition, Congress would immediately possess this power. 
Hence wc infer that agreeably to the intention of the original framers of the Consti- 
tution, Congress does possess exclusive power to regulate trade among the several 
states, and that the trade in the souls of men cannot by any rule of interpretation be 
excepted. But this power to abrogate the domestic slave-trade is certainly derived 
from the article which gives to Congress the right of regulating commerce among the 
several states, and as certainly not from the article prohibiting this action of Congress 
previous to 1808. Although this prohibitory article implies that the Constitution 
somewhere endows Congress with this power, and may be regarded as alluding toviii. 
eection of article 1, and regulating its time of going into operation. 



11 

traffic. Was this legislation in favor of humanity 1 or 
was it in favor of the domestic trade, the market 
of which would be overstocked by foreign importa- 
tions 1 If the former was the object, why do not our 
representatives abolish the domestic iniquity imme- 
diately 1 Is it not an object sufficiently worthy of 
Congress 1 Shall a traffic, abhorred by all men, be 
permitted to tarnish the glory of our beloved country 1 
Shall the bodies and souls of native Americans be 
subject to purchase and sale under authority of the 
general government ? 

If then it is manifest that Congress alone is compe- 
tent to legislate on the subject of the domestic slave- 
trade, and the slavery of the District of Columbia and 
the territories, it is certain that no power could resist 
the will of the nation whenever that will shall be fully 
and constitutionally expressed. 

Let it, however, be remembered that we desire no 
action of Congress in " regulating commerce among 
the several states" calculated in any wise to interfere 
with "the sovereignty of each state to legislate on the 
subject of the slavery which is tolerated icithin its own 
limits." * Yet while we respect the sovereignty of the 
individual states, we deem it the duty of every Ameri- 
can to vindicate the proper sovereignty of tlie national 
government. 

It may be asked what good result would follow, if this 
measure could be carried into effect? would not slavery 
still exist and exhibit all its liorrors ? No — certainly. 
The prohibition of the domestic slave-trade would in 
all probability destroy slavery. Already the most 
northerly slave-states derive no other profit from the 

* Declaration of" the National Anti-Slavery Convention. 



1^ 

vsystem, than that wliich results from supplying the 
southern markets. They would then very probably 
emancipate, and thus add their influence to the cause 
of righteousness and of liberty. 

3d. Slavery interferes with and annuls the rights 
of citizens as guarantied by the Constitution. In the 
second section of the Constitution (article 4,) it is said 
" The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the 
privileges and immunities of citizens of the several 
states." But in the face of this express article, laws 
exist in almost every slave-state by which free colored 
citizens of the northern states may be, and actually 
are, taken up and imprisoned as runaways, and if not 
claimed, are sold for jail fees into perpetual slavery. — 
This horrid outrage is habitually practised in the United 
States prison in the District of Columbia and through- 
out the whole south.* Where, we ask, is the majesty 

* " On the 1st of August, 1826, a notice appeared in the National IntelHgencer at 
Washington, from the Marshal of the D. of C, that a negro named Gilbert Horton, 
and claiming to be free, had been committed to jail in Washington city as a runaway, 
and unless his oicner proved property, and took, him away by a certain time, the negro 
would be sold \for his jail fees and other expenses, as the law directs.' Horton was a 
native of Westchester Co. N. Y., and known there to be free. A pubhc meeting of the 
inhabitants of the county was called, to take measures for his liberation. The meeting 
was held 30th August, 1826, and aseriesof resolutions were unanimously adopted; one 
of them calling on the Governor to demand the instant hberation of Horton as a free 
citizen of the State of New-York. Two of the resolutions were as follows : 

" Resolved, That the law under which Horton has been imprisoned, and by which 
a free citizen without evidence of crime, and without trial by jury, may be condemned 
to servitude for life, is repugnant to our republican institutions, and revolting to justice 
and humanity ; and that the representatives from this State in Congress are requested 
to use their endeavors to procure its repeal." 

" Resolved, That a Committee be appointed to prepare and present to the citizens 
of this county for their signatures, a petition to Congress for the immediate abolition 
of Slavery in the District of Columbia." 

Governor De Witt Clinton, in compliancewith the request of the meeting, wrote to the 
President of the United States, forwarding evidence of Horton's freedom, and requiring 
his immediate liberation "as a free man and a citizen." Horton was released before 
the receipt of the Governor's letter. The Westchester petition was signed by 800 
and presented to the House of Representatives. 

In December, 1826, Mr. W^ard, representative in Congress from Westchester, Intro- 



13 

of a state, whose feeblest citizen iinds no protection 
from violence and outrage? Where the Christianity 
of a country, whose churches are dead to the cries 
of the poor and tlie needy 1 

What renders this more ii>sulting' to the northern 
states, is the fact, that while this article of the Con- 
stitution is trampled under foot, together with the 
sacred right of citizenship, our southern brethren pay 
particular respect to the claims of a i^W/isA^Mss, which 
is sure to regain the liberty of any colored man thus 
arrested, " to be sold for jail fees and other eiyenses, as 
the law directs^ But our own citizens have not equal 
advantages with foreigners ; fortified as their rights are 
by express enactment of the Constitution. If the rights 
of Americans cannot be preserved against such viola- 
tions, the Constitution is already in ruins. It is too 
late to sound the notes of warning, it were better to 

duced a resolution calling on the committee for the District of Columbia to inquire 
whether there was any law in the district authorizing the imprisonment of a free per- 
son of color, and his sale as an unclaimed slave for h\s jail fees. The resolution was 
adopted after much opposition by the southern members. The committee reported 
that there was such a law, vindicated its general policy, but recommended that when 
the arrested negro was unclaimed, he should not be sold, but that the county should 
pay the cost of imprisonment. The people of Georgetown presented a remonstrance 
against this proposition of the conmiittee. The law remained unchanged, and so re- 
mains, it is believed, to this day. 

On the 27th March, 1827, a petition was presented to Congress from 1000 citizens 
of the D. of C, praying for a revisal of the slave laws, and an act declaring that all 
children of slaves to be born in the District after the 4th of July, 1828, should be free 
at the age of 25, and that the importation of slaves into the District might be prohibited. 
From this petition, the following is an extract: viz. 

"A colored man last summer, who stated that he was entitled to freedom, was taken 
up as a runaway slave and lodged within the jail of Washington city. He was adver- 
tised, but no one appearing to claim him, he was according to law put up at public 
zmction for payment of his jail fees, and sold as a slave for life! He was purchased 
by a slave trader, who was not required to give security for his remaining in the Dis- 
trict, and he was soon after shipped from Alexandria for one of the southern states. 
Thus was a human being sold into perpetual bondage, at the capital of the freest 
government on earth, without even a pretence of a trial, or the allegation of a crime." 
— [Extracted from Judge Jay's letter to Professor Wright, published in the American 
Anti-Slavery Reporter, for May, 1834.] 



14 

toll the knell of her dissolution. For what security is 
there that the rights of any other class of citizens may 
not be likevrise invaded with impunity ? While the 
slave-holder so contemptuously tramples on the Con- 
stitution in this respect, it is monstrous to Avitness his 
tenacity in enforcing the claims which the Constitution 
authorizes him to urge in the recovering of fugitives. Let 
our own prisons in this city, whose cells, 7 feet by 3^ 
and without ventilation, have been filled with these 
unfortunate beings through the past season of pesti- 
lence, bear witness ! Sure we are that the judgment 
of the Almighty must overtake this nation if it do not 
repent of these outrages. 

The provisions of the Constitution fully and fairly 
carried out, would cripple and destroy slavery, not- 
withstar.ding the repugnant clause relative to fugitives, 
and induce the vstates to banish every trace of it from 
their statute books and from the land. Let this subject 
be examined, and let the responsibility of every citizen 
be felt, the prayer of every Christian ofifered, and the 
effort of every lover of his country be put forth, to do 
what can be done, for liberty and for our beloved land. 

On this subject, a iz : the political question involved 
in slavery, we would recommend and entreat our 
fellow-citizens to petition Congress, for the abolition 
of slavery in the District and Territories, and the 
prohibition of all trade, in the bodies and souls of men, 
between the several states. Farther than this we 
wish no interference of Congress, but within these 
limits, the Constitution authorizes, and we desire, its 
action. 

The moral effect of merely abolishing slavery in the 
District of Columbia, placing as it would the national 



15 

frown upon this criminal system, would undoubtedly 
be such as to promote the progress of liberty through- 
out the Union, and prove an essential means of re- 
moving this stigma from the character — this curse on 
the prosperity — this upas on the morals of our nation. 

Second. We proceed to take a view of the true 
character of slavery, as it exists in the United States. 

Shavery is a system of compulsory, perpetual, lie- 
reditary, unrequited toil. It is a state of bcin* into 
which humanity has been reduced by violence, outrage 
and robbery. A condition worse than that of the 
brutes. Nature designed them for the service of man ! 
and no violence is done to them in subjecting them to 
that service. Brutes too are protected by law against 
cruelty, and are not rendered liable to its penalty, but 
the slave is an outlaw from the mercy, and a victim to 
all the terrors of legislation. 

There are seventy-one crimes recognized by the 
slave-laws of the south, for which colored men suffer 
death, and for which a white man would be liable to 
no severer penalty than imprisonment in the peniten- 
tiary.* 

The testimony of a negro, whether bond or free, is 
not received as evidence, except to criminate one of his 
own color.t 

Female virtue is not defended by the laws of the 
slave states, in this Christian land ; while the pagan 
laws of Rome and Greece authorized a female slave to 
shed human blood in her own defence. J 

* Vide Stroud's Sketch of the Laws relating to slavery in the several states 
of the United States of America, Page 107. 

t Idem. Page 27. ' 

t A slave cannot even contract matrimony — the association which takes place 
among slaves, and is called marriage, being properly designated by the word contu- 



16 

As if the outrage were not sufficient for men profes- 
sing the principles of universal liberty, to deny to the 
poor and oppressed the inalienable right to their own 
souls and bodies, Americans, by the most cold blooded 
legislation, have put out the eyes of the mind, and 
quenched the light of everlasting life by denying to 
their own countrymen the knowledge of letters and 
the Gospel of God our Saviour.* 

Thfcse poor creatures are sold in the streets of our 
southern cities without regard to decency or humanity. 
Parents are separated; children torn ruthlessly from 
the very bosom of their mothers, and exposed to sale 
like cattle, under the auctioneer's hammer.! 

Marriage is unsanctioned and unprotected by law, 
and all the domestic relations are summarily violated.;}] 
In this country of light and knowledge, in this land 
of religion and revivals, in this home of liberty, it is no 
disgrace to the Christian minister, to the dignified 
judge. of our highest courts, to the eloquent senator or 
to the delicate female, thus to have dealt in the trade 
of human hearts ; in the sighs and groans of God's 
poor. While ^'to cry aloud" in behalf of the oppressed, 
to repeat the Scripture commands " Thou shalt neither 
vex a stranger nor oppress him," is the sure way to 
proYoke persecution and calumny.§ But blessed be 

bcrnium — a relation which has no sanctity, and to which no civil rights are attached. 
" A slave has never maintained an action against the violator of his bed. A slave is 
not admonished for incontinence, or punished for fornication or adidtcry : never prose- 
cuted for bigamy, or petty treason for killing a husband being a slave, any more than 
admitted to an appeal for nuu-der."— Opinion of Daniel Dulany, Esq., Attorney General 
of Maryland— 1 Maryland Reports, 561, 563.— [Stroud's Slave Laws, pages 61, 62.] 

» Vide Stroud's Sketch of the Slave Laws, Page 90. 

+ Vide Advertisements, in all the Southern prints. 

t Vide Stroud's Sketch, Page 61. 

§It were easy to cite instances to prove every statement of this paragraph. A 
wish to avoid personality alone prevents references to facts published in southern 



ir 

God! there are some who, like Moses, choose "rathef 
to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to 
enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season."- — Heb. xii. 
25. 

Torture and the scourge, nakedness and hunger, are 
not uncommon sufferings of the slave. Slaves have been 
coursed v.ith bloodhounds, and pursued by parties 
of men as wild beasts, in what is familiarly known as 
a negro hunt. "* 

'• If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn 
unto deatli, and those that are ready to be slain, If 
tliou sayest behold, we knew it not ; doth not he that 
pondereth the heart consider it 7 and he that keepeth 
thy soul doth he not know it ? and shall not he render 
to every man according to his works V — Prov. xxiv. 
vs. 11 and 12. 

What a commentary on the profession of religion is 
the apathy of our churches ! We may mock each 
other, and deceive ourselves, but the Searcher of hearts 
will by no means clear the guilty. 

Slaves are forced by the lash to work without 
w^ages, sometimes even by professed Christians, in 
spite of the divine malediction, '' Wo unto him that 
useth his neighbor's service w ithout wages, that giveth 
him not for his work." — Jer. xxii. 13. 

The concubinage which is permitted or encouraged 
among tlie slaves, rolls back its pollution upon the 
master ; and it is beyond dispute, and evidenced by the 
complexion of the slaves, that a large portion of them 

prints, amply proving all that is here asserted ; whilst other facts are fresh in the 
memory of the public to show that the freedom of speech and opinion, exercised 
on this " delicate subject," has cost some of our best citizens both safety and 
reputation. 

* Vide Stroud's Sketch, Pages 38 and 40. 
3 



18 

are the children of their oppressors. What was ever 
heard of in the darkness of Africa, or in guilty Sodom, 
to transcend in enormity the crime of enlightened free- 
men trading in the bodies of their own children, and 
selling them into bondage more hopeless than Algerine 
slavery ! for in the Barbary States, a slave is instantly 
set free, on embracing the faith of Mohammed ; while 
in our Christian country, conversion sometimes renders 
the slave more valuable as an article of merchandize, 
and thus increases the difficulty of his manumission. 

A show of argument is sometimes made of Scripture, 
in defence of slavery ; but it needs only a moment's 
reflection to discover the fallacy of this reasoning ; 
since all distinctions of nation are done aw^ay in 
Christ, who '' hath broken down the middle wall of 
partition" (Ephs. ii. 14.) between the Jews and other 
nations. Christians should remember that " what God 
hath cleansed" they should not " call common." Our 
duties to the whole human family are those of love and 
kindness, as constituted by our own pardon and salva- 
tion in Jesus Christ. It were more pertinent to the 
subject of our duties to our fellovr-men, to quote the 
words of the beloved Apostle — " If a man say, I love 
God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar : for he that 
loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he 
love God, whom he hath not seen 1" — 1 John iv. 20, 

Let Christians remember the instructions of their 
master to the lawyer, that demanded of him, who is 
my neighbor? The Samaritan, who was of a nation 
despised by the Jews, and held in the same contempt 
that we indulge towards the negro, is in that inimitable 
parable held forth as " neighbor to him who fell among 
thieves." Hence the commandment " thou shalt love 



19 

thy neighbor as tliyself/" is totally irreconcilable with 
involuntary slavery, or any other form of oppression 
exercised even towards the meanest members of the 
human family. Our duty to the colored people of this 
land is urgent, and the retribution of Divine justice, if 
suspended in order to solicit our repentance, is yet im- 
minent, and must overtake us, unless we speedily 
repent, and " do w^orks meet for repentance." 

Third. We propose and vindicate the remedy, viz i 
Immediate Emancipation, as enforced alike by expe- 
diency and duty. 

Whatever exception may be made to the term, the 
thing- itself must at some period be adopted, or slavery 
will be perpetual ; for no plan of gradual emancipation 
has yet been proposed, or can be, which does not be- 
come immediate, whenever it is reduced to practice. 

But if slavery be a sin — and the universal conscience 
of man thus brands it — by w^hat code of morals, we 
ask, can a gradual abandonment of it be justified ? 
That coerced labor and loss of freedom for crimes are 
authorized by the Divine law, we w ill not deny. Such 
an argument might be urged if w^e were pleading for 
criminals. But our enslaved countrymen are innocent 
individuals ; they are unaccused of crime, and the only 
cause of their suffering, is the avarice of their op- 
pressors. 

We as freely admit that a man may sell himself, as 
was the case in the bond-service authorized by the 
Jewish law, for a term of service, but not as a slave, 
and that such voluntary bond-servants may of right 
become the inheritance of children, subject to original 
engagement, or, among the Jews, to the law of Jubi- 
lee ; by which, on every fiftieth year, '' liberty" was 



20 



proclaimed ^'throughout all the land, unto all the 
INHABITANTS thereof."'* 

We thus confess that servitude may begin by one's 
selling himself to another — " if only meant of contracts 
to serve or work for one another" — and that this is 
" very just, but when applied to strict slavery, in the 
laws of old Rome and modern Barbary,"t or the United 

• That the individuals to whom this law solely applied were the bond-servants 
bought of the strangers is evident, because there is an absolute prohibition in the 
Divine law against the Hebrews ever being permitted to take their brethren as 
bondsmen ; Vide Levit. xxv. 39 and 40. By what right then can we take our 
brethren as perpetual slaves ? 

t "As to the several sorts of servants, I have formerly observed," says the learned 
Blackstone, " that pure and proper slavery does not, nay cannot, subsist in England : 
such, I mean, whereby an absolute and unlimited power is given to the master over 
the life and fortune of the slave. And indeed it is repugnant to reason, and the prin- 
ciples of natural law, that such a state of things should exist any where. The three 
origins of the right of slavery, assigned by Justinian, are all of them built upon false 
foundations. As first, slavery is held to rise "jure gentium," from a state of captivity 
m war; whence slaves are called mancipia, quasi, manu capti. The conqueror, say 
the civilians, had a right to the life of his captive, and having spared that, has a right 
to deal with him as he pleases. But it is an untrue position, when taken generally, 
that by the law of nature or nations, a man may kill his enemy : he has only a right 
to kill him in particular cases, in cases of absolute necessity for self-defence, and it is 
plain this absolute necessity did not subsist, since the victor did not actually kill him, 
but made him prisoner. War is itself justifiable only on the principles of self-preserva- 
tion: and therefore it gives no other right over prisoners but merely to disable them 
from doing harm to us, by confining their persons : much less can it give a right to 
kill, torture, abuse, plunder, or even to enslave an enemy when the war is over. 

Since therefore the right oi making slaves by captivity depends on a supposed right 
of slaughter, that foundation failing, the consequence drawn from it must fail like- 
wise. But secondly, it is said that slavery may begin "jure civili," where one sells 
himself to another. This, if only meant of contracts, to serve or work for another, is 
very just: but when applied to strict slavery, in the laws of old Rome and modern 
Barbary, is also impossible. Every sale implies a price, a quid -pro quo, an equivalent 
given to the seller in lieu of what he transfers to the buyer : but what equivalent can 
be given for life, and liberty, both of which (in absolute slavery) are held to be in the 
master's disposal ? His property also, the very price he seems to receive devolves 
ipso facto to his master, the instant he becomes his slave. In this case, therefore, the 
buyer gives nothing, and the seller receives nothing: of what validity can a sale be 
which destroys the very principles on which all sales are founded? Lastly, we are 
told that besides these two ways by which slaves "fittnt," or are acquired, they may 
also be hereditary " serri nascuntifr ;" the children of acquired slaves are jure 
naturee, by a negative kmd of birth-right, slaves also. But this being built on the two 



21 

States, tliere is nothing but injustice, a violation of all 
sound principles of government, and a practical insult 
to the authority of God, the common Father of us all. 
But our countrymen in chains have never sold them- 
selves. The slavery of this land having originated in 
man stealing, is prolonged, by successive acts of vio- 
lence and injustice. Every new-born child, appro- 
priated by the avarice of its master, is in fact the 
victim of the same injustice by which the parent was 
at first torn from his home in Africa. 

The true question before the American people, and 
especially American Christians, is, whether American 
slavery, ^\ hose origin and continuation are undeniably 
in violence and injustice, can be gradually repented 
o^] or in other words, whether, according to the morals 
of Christianity, it is possible to postpone the duty of 
repentance. Could a greater absurdity be proposed, 
than to continue the crime and cruelty of slave-holding 
for any defined term, as an act of repentance ? It is 
at best purposhig repentance at a distant day. The 
insincerity of such a proceeding is too palpable to be 
argued. If we do not repent absolutely, we continue 
in the sin, and only compromise with conscience. The 
injunction of the Apostle is here exactly in point: "Let 
him that stole, steal no more, but rather let him labor, 
working with his hands the thing which is good, that 
he may have to give to him that needeth." — Eph. iv. 
28. If then a gradual discontinuance of crime be 
incompatible with genuine repentance, how shall those 
who cry against this sin be justified in the sight of God, 

former rights, must fall together with them. If neither captivity, nor the sale of one's 
self, can by the law of nature and reason, reduce the parent to slavery, much less cii 
they reduce the offspring." — [Blackstonc's Commentaries, Vol. 1st, Chapter 14, 
Pages 423-4.] 



22 

unless they prer.ch the duty of an immediate, sincere, 
total and absolute abandonment of it 1 

The voluntary bond-service of the Jews was broken 
up every seventh or Sabbatical year, (which was the 
Jubilee of the Hebrew servants,) so that those en- 
gagements could never become perpetual, and degene- 
rate into slavery and oppression. This was done im- 
mediately and invariably, and was never followed with 
consequences worse than the blessing of God, the re- 
pairing of the waste places, and the renewal of those 
voluntary engagements by which servants among them 
were held by bond to labor. The master had no pro- 
prietorship in their bodies, but possessed only a claim 
on their services until the expiration of the engagement 
or the return of the Jubilee. In case the servant was 
an Hebrew, and ^^ as even sold as a bondsman the 
master being a Hebrew could not extort service from 
him without wages. "If thy brother that dwelleth by 
thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee ; thou shalt 
not compel him to serve as a bond servant. But as 
an HIRED servant and as a sojourner, he shall be with 
thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of Jubilee." — 
Lev. xxv. 39 and 40. And again that the Jubilee of the 
Hebrew servant was at the end of every six years, or on 
the commencement of the Sabbatical year, is evident 
from the following passage. " If thou buy a Hebrew 
servant, six years shall he serve, and in the seventh 
he shall GO out free for nothing." Hence it ap- 
pears that the great Jubilee which was proclaimed * 
" throughout all the land to every inhabitant thereof," 
was in fact the year of enfranchisement to other 
than Hebrew servants, for these were released 

• Levit. xxv. 10. 



23 

on the Sabbatical year, after six years servitude as 
liired servants, and not as bond-servants. We are now 
able to understand what is meant by the following 
passages, appealed to with such triumph by the de- 
fenders of slavery, to prove that Jehovah has au- 
thorized oppression.* '• Moreover of the children of the 

* To show with what effrontery the very fountains of the water of hfe have been 
poisoned, we transcribe from Calmet's Dictionary, (article Slavery,) the following 
passages, in which he undertakes to prove that the Hebrews were authorized by 
Jehovah to enslave men in several different ways. 

"A Hebrew," says this author, " might fall into slavery seyeia.1 ways; (1.) If re- 
duced to extreme poverty he might sell himself. — Lev. xxv. 39. (2.) A father might 
sell his children as slaves. — Exod. xxi. 7. (3.) Insolvent debtors might be delivered 
to their creditors as slaves. — 2 Kings iv. 1. (4.) Thieves not able to make restitution 
for their thefts, or the value, were sold for the benefit of the sufferers.— Exod. xxii. 3. 
(5.) They might be taken prisoners in war. (6.) They might be stolen, and after- 
wards sold for slaves, as Joseph was by his brethren. (7.) A Hebrew slave redeemed 
from a Gentile by one of his brethren, might be sold to another Israelite." 

Now wc dare assert, and will prove, that this writer has made a mere show 
of authority, and that in the whole seven ways "in which a Hebrew mi^htfall into 
slavery," he has not been able to produce a single reference which bears out his pro- 
fane charge against God's holy law. 

This we will proceed to establish, by quoting the very passages to which he has 
referred, and proving that they authorize no slavery whatever. 

(1.) " If reduced to extreme poverty he might sell himself." The text here referred 
to, to prove that a Hebrew might sell himself into slavery, says nothing about slavery- 
whatever; but on the contrary declares, "thou shalt not compel him to serve as 
A bond servant, but as a hired servant, and as a sojourner," and that for no period 
longer than six years ; and further on, in the 42d verse, it is distinctly stated that "they 
(the Hebrews) shall not be bondmen." Hence the bondmen of the Hebrews were 
never of their brethren, and the first "way intchich a Hebrew might fall into slavery," 
as Calmet has it, has no existence in the authority of God, or the customs of the 
Hebrews. 

(2.) " A father might sell his children as slaves." What hbel on the law of God 
greater than this could have been invented ? 

The text referred to is as follows : "And if a man sell his daughter to be a maid 
servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do. If she please not her master 
WHO HATH betrothed HER TO HIMSELF, then shall he let her be redeemed ; to sell heb 
UNTO A strange NATION, HE SHALL HAVE NO POWER." The whole tcxt and context 
showing as clearly as possible that a father had no right to sell his daughter, except 
AS A WIPE. Her rights are clearly protected, and she is to be married by the pur- 
chaser OR his son — otherwise (Uth verse) "shall she oo out free without money." 

(3.) "Insolvent debtors might be delivered to their creditors as slaves." The text 
is, "And the creditor is come to take imto him my two sons as bondmen." Here 
the sophistry consists in changing the word bondmen to slaves. The word slave cannot 
be found in the whole law, and we know what the law of bond service is, viz : that it 
shall terminate at the year of Jubilee. This is no slavery, but bond service. 



'^4 

strangers that do s^ojourn among you of them shall ye 
buy and of their ftiinilies that are with you, which they 
begat in your land, and they shall be your possession : 
and ye shall take them for a possession, they shall be 
your bondmen forever, but over your brethren the 
children of Israel ye shall not rule one over another 
with rigor. " * — Lev. xxv. 45 and 46. Here we have 
an authority to keep slaves forever ! according to the 
advocates of slavery ; and certainly at first sight 
there seems to be a contradiction to the law of Jubilee, 
when liberty was proclaimed '' throughout all the land 
to ALL the inhabitants thereof." Like other seeming 
contradictions of the Bible, however, it needs only to 



(4.) In the case of thieves the text is, "If he have nothing, than shall he be sold for 
liis theft." Here is nothing said of slavery, it is bond service merely, and even a thief, 
who thus righteously incurred the penalty of forfeited hberty, '■vould enjoy the mercy 
of the Jubilee. If he were a Hebrew, he would go free at the lesser Jubilee, the 
Sabbatical or seventh year; but if a stranger, or foreigner at farthest, he would be 
released a( the great Jubilee of bond servants, when all the inhabitants were released. 

(5.) "T;iey might be taken prisoners in war." Here our author makes not even a 
show of authority ; but we will help him to a text : Deut. vii. 2 — " Thou shalt smite 
them and utterly destkov them, thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor 
show mercy unto them." There is no statute of commutation for the seven guilty 
nations ; none of them were ever reduced to slavery, nor did "pure and proper slavery" 
ever exist under the Hebrew pohty. 

(6.) "They might be stolen and afterwards sold into slavery, as Joseph was sold 
by his brethren." This is the most extraordinary of all commentaries ! They might 
be stolen ! Indeed ! But here again a text is wanted, and we have one at hand. 
Exod. xxi. 2 — "And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in 

HIS HAND he shall SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH." 

(7.) "A Hebrew slave redeemed from a Gentile, by one of his brethren, might be 
sold by him to another Israelite." Here again no show of authority is adduced what- 
ever. It will be sufficient, in order to prove the utter inaccuracy of this assertion, to 
quote from Lev. xxv., 39th and 40th verses, the prohibition of the Divine law against 
making any Hebrew a bond servant : " Thou shalt not compel him, [a Hebrew,] to 
serve as a bond servant, but as an hired servant." Hence it is evident that the 
Hebrew could not be sold as a slave, or even as a bondman. 

+ " Rigor" here used cannot mean oppression or cruelty, but is merely applied 
to the mode of obtaining labor from a bond- servant ; and is used in opposition to 
wages, the means of soliciting cheerful labor from an hired servant. Otherwise 
it would be contrary to the command of the most High, not to oppress the 
stranger. 



25 

be understood, and the contradiction vanishes. They 
and tlicni in the 45th verse, referring to tlie children 
of strangers, are evidently in opposition to your breth- 
ren^ in the next verse. The meaning of the passage 
is therefore evidently that the Jews should forever be 
privileged to hold as bond-servants persons purchased 
of strangers, but this privilege was forbidden them with 
respect to their brethren the Hebrews. The word 
forever^ if rendered always, would have answered the 
proper meaning of the Hebrew. The emphasis of the 
passage is on they^ and not on forever. They shall be 
your bondsmen forever, not the Hebrews your brethren. 
But let us take it in a literal sense. Then those men, 
both masters and servants, must live forever in those 
capacities to fulfil the meaning of the text. Other texts 
prove conclusively that the slave-holder's interpretation 
of the passage under consideration is in direct variance 
with its true meaning and with the whole spirit of the 
dealings of Jehovah towards our race. " For the Lord 
your God is God of Gods, and Lord of Lords, a great 
God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not 
persons, nor taketh reward : He doth execute the 
judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the 
STRANGER, in giviug him food and raiment. Love ye, 
therefore, the stranger." — Deut. x. 17, 18, 19. 

" Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger, for ye 
know the heart of a stranger, for ye were strangers in 
the land of Egypt." — Exod. xxiii. 9. 

" Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress 
HIM, for ye were strangers in the land of Egy|3t." — 
Exod. xxii. 21. 

But what oppression could be greater than to take 
them for slaves and their posterity after them forever, 
4 



26 

to hold them as chatties, and to deprive them of every 
right ? Jehovah is not the author of oppression. 

The bondmen among the Hebrews who were bought 
of strangers, were sold for debt,* for a limited period 
of time, at farthest not beyond the fiftieth year. Even 
if the sum for \yiich they were sold was greater than 
the value of the services, yet in no case could the 
bondage be protracted beyond that period. But sla- 
very in this country has its origin in man-stealmg ; and 
the same law to which the slave-holder so confidently 
appeals, makes no distinction between the original 
thief and the person in whose hands the stolen man 
may be found. " And he that stealeth a man and 
selletli him, or if he be found in ms hands, shall surely 
be put to death." — Exod. xvi. 21. 

This text alone proves that the bond service of the 
Hebrews, as sanctioned by the Divine law, was never 
involuntary and coerced — never originated in violence 
and robbery. Is it not enough to cause the blush of 
shame, that in the nineteenth century it should be ne- 
cessary to prove to Christians, that their God is not 
the founder of slavery and justifier of man-stealing ? 

Oppression in every form was not only denounced 
and put under the curse of the Most High, but was 
entirely precluded by the following enactment : " Thou 
shalt not deliver unto his master, the servant which 
hath escaped from his master unto thee ; he shall dwell 
with thee, even among you in that place which he 
SHALL CHOOSE, iu oue of thy gates where it liketh him 
best; thou .shalt not oppress him." — Deut. xxiii. 15, 16, 
So that in case of cruelty, unkindness or even dissatis-^ 

* Vide 2 Kings, iv. L — " The creditor is come to take my two sons to be 
bondmen." 



fiiction, the servant might leave hk master, and was 
protected from being delivered to him by an express 
law. Far be it from the God of the oppressed to have 
authorized a system of slavery and robbery ; instead 
of this he has forbidden with a curse to take the labor 
of another without* wages ; and when he makes pro- 
vision for sending away the servant on the year of Ju- 
bilee, (the Sabbatical Jubilee,) after ordering the 
master not to let him go empty, he uses this inmiitable 
and eloquent language : " It shall not seem hard unto 
thee, when thou sendest him away from thee ; for he 
hath been Avorth a double hired servant unto thee in 
serving tliee six years: and the Lord thy God shall 
bless thee in all that thou doest." — Deut. xv. 18. 

Thus so far from the institution of slavery being 
traceable to the Divine law, we find, upon an atten- 
tive examination of the subject, that that law has no 
other tendency than to prevent, by wholesome pro- 
visions, the possibility of voluntary bond service ever 
degenerating into slavery, and to forbid even bond 
service itself among the Hebrews in the persons of their 
brethren. 

A candid examination of the subject will satisfy 
any intelligent person that the bond service of the He- 
brews, as authorized by the holy and merciful law 
of God, w^as a system of just and equal service, and 
although rigorous compared with hired service, was 
still assuaged by many important regulations, and has 
no affinity whatever with slavery, a system in which the 
master claims a proprietorship in the soul and the 
body, impiously wresting, (as it were,) from the Most 
High, his right ; for God is manifestly the only pro- 
prietor of human beings.* 

* Among the Romans, slaves were procured by being captured in war. The 



28 

Indeed many advocates of anti-slavery, themselves, 
seem to have fallen into the common error that Jehovah 
authorized the Hebrews to take captives from the 
seven accursed nations, and reduce them to bond ser- 
vants. This was never authorized by the law of God. 
The Hebrews were directed " tS make no covenant 
WITH THEM, nor show mercy to them — Deut. vii. 2.; and 
for the express reason, " For they will turn aw ay thy 
son from following ine," &c. — 4th verse. 

Even the Gibeonites who deceived Joshua, and were 
saved iu consequence of his rash covenant with them, 
were not made slaves, or even bond servants, but were 
destined to be "Hewers of wood and drawers of water 

FOR. THE CONGREGATION, AND FOR THE ALTAR OF THE 

LORD. — "Josh. ix. 27. The most merciful God would 
not even make these wicked men slaves or perpetual 
bond servants ; they were servants of the lowest sort 
to the altar — never slaves. God authorized Joshua to 
take the lives, but not to commute to servitude the sen- 
tence of the vanquished heathen. 

That gradual emancipation is but cmancii^ation in the 
abstract^ a postponed duty, a cruel injustice, is proved 
by the fact of its failure in this country, after being in 
vogue for half a century. It is confirmed also by the 
opinions of Wilberforce and Clarkson themselves, who 
rejected it after several years of trial, and confessed 
that their first efforts were ill-directed. It authorizes 
a continuance of evil, of suffering and sin. 

Emancipation is always immediate ichen it takes 

etymology of the Latin words mancipium, (quasi manu capti,) slave, and servus, 
an abbreviation of servatus, (saved,) both prove this origin of slavery. But it was 
this very sin of oppression, among others, which induced the Divine ven- 
geance on the Pagan nations. This heathen violence was never authorized by 
the Most High. 



29 

place ; and there is ikj other meaning in the term 
gradual in this connexion than is better conveyed by 
the expression, prospective emancipation. There is a 
real ilhision in the idea of gradualism. In the year 1827, 
ten thousand slaves were iinmcdiatelij set free in this state 
by virtue of an act passed in 1799. This is an instance 
of what is called gradual emancipation, but in fact it 
was immediate when it occurred, jjros/;cc?ifc before, but 
never gradual. It is a plan obnoxious, hoAvever, to many 
objections ; among which not the least is the opportunity 
thus afforded to slave-holders within the period between 
its enactment and execution, to sell and transport their 
slaves to slave countries. In this view of. the subject 
the boasted scheme of gradualism is no more than a 
hollow pretence of philanthropy, made by slave-dealers. 

But a real and honest practice of gradual abolition 
amounts to this, and to this only, viz : to compel, by 
law, a future generation to manumit their slaves, while 
the present race is retained in bondage. It says — 
to emancipate the present number is impracticable, we 
will then oblige our children, in twenty years from this 
time, to set free twice the number. For it is a fact 
tested by all experience, that slaves double their num- 
ber once in every twenty years, while the free negroes 
do not double theirs under forty years. Is not the 
advantage then decidedly on the side of immediate, and 
the disadvantage with postponed emancipation ? 

What real difficulty would have been encountered 
by New-York if she had manumitted her slaves in 
1799, that was not experienced in 1827 1 

But while the benefit of this measure to the north 
was in course of preparation, the slaves at the south 
alone have become more than four times as many as 



30 

Avere in the whole country at the close of the Kevolu- 
tion. Thus, the most important practical result of the 
doctrine of gradual emancipation has been to multiply 
four or five times the number of slaves that were in the 
land at the time of its being first inculcated. They 
have more than doubled twice since the peace of 1783. 
Many people regard the preponderance of the colored 
population at the south with dismay ; and nothing can 
be more certain than that the ratio of increase of the 
slave population can only be equalled by the diminished 
rate of increase of the white people.* All experience 

* It is shown by the census of the United States, that during the period of 40 
years immediately preceding the year 1830, the slave population south of the 
Potomac and the Ohio had QUADRUPLED in number ; and in the states north 
of those boundaries, in a majority of which the abolition principles of our revolu- 
tionary ancestors have triumphed, the colored population had NOT QUITE 
DOUBLED. 

In Eastern Virginia (according to a communication in the Af. Rep. for April 
1833, page 16,) it appears that from 1790 to 1830, the white population had di- 
minished 131,915, and the colored had increased 143,063. This almost incredi- 
ble disparity of population occurred notwithstanding the vigorous prosecution 
of the domestic slave-trade, by which Virginia has been in the habit of exporting 
annually to the south, 6000 slaves. The same result followed the oppression 
of the Hebrews in Egypt, " and the land was filled with them." 

From these facts, it is evident that the condition of bondage, is the real 

CAUSE OF augmenting IN AN UNNATURAL AND FRIGHTFUL RATIO THE NUMBERS OF THE 
OPPRESSED. 

Every moment of delay only sweeps us nearer to the awful precipice of destiny. 
The slaves double in less than 20 years, while the whites in many places by 
licentiousness and emigration actually diminish ; thus it is evident that no in 
fatuation is so mad, none so blind as that which urges the delay of measures 
already difficult, and which must soon become absolutely impracticable. 

Whatever may be the considerations derived from these facts, one circum- 
stance should be borne in mind by every lover of his country, viz : that the recent 
act of the British government in liberating the slaves of Jamaica, and the other 
British Islands, has rendered abolition in our country imperative and una- 
voidable. It is this fact, which adds certainty and gives impulse to the progress 
of universal liberty throughout the world- We are thus driven to the conclusion 
that slavery must terminate in one of these ways : — 1. By the extermination of the 
blacks. 2. By the cxtirmination of the whites. Or 3. By voluntary emancipa- 
tion.— [Ncw-York City Anti-Slavery Society's Address, Oct. 1833.] (Third 
Edition.) 



31 

leaclies that the colored portion must soon vastly out- 
number the other, I'rom the established facts of their 
growth ; but in addition to this the emigration of white 
families from motives of prudence ; and the licentious- 
ness of others, together with the degraded state of the 
negroes, will continue to effect a greater disproportion 
of the races. The result, as horrible as it is inevita- 
ble, in the present state of hatred engendered by 
oppression, is only to be averted, by establishing a 
kind relation between the races. Unless mercy takes 
the place of cruelty, repentance of wrongs, and the law 
of kindness be substituted for the scourge, the thumb- 
screw, the torture and gibbet, nothing is more certain 
than that, in the common course of things, a most awful 
retribution will visit our southern country, overwhelm- 
ing the master in utter ruin. 

Will it be objected that emancipation is dangerous ? 
that the slave, so inoffensive under injuries, is fierce 
and blood-thirsty when emancipated 7 Shall we be 
told that to give him liberty will endanger his master ? 
His master already reposes on a volcano's crater. To- 
him the night is a period of danger and dread. Profound 
peace a time of extreme exposiu'e, to which the terrors 
of civil war are preferable. Governer Hayne, of South 
Carolina, boldly advocates this doctrine, and explains 
in some measure the turbulence for which the party 
he leads is notorious. " A state of military preparation," 
says his Excellency, " must always he icith us, a state 
of perfect domestic security. A peiiod of profound jjeace 
and consequent apathy may expose us to the danger 
of domestic insurrection. But when the freemen of the 
country are in array, with arms in their hands, there 
must be an end to all apprehension from this source.'* 



32 

It is difficult to conceive of a state of greater danger 
than that described by Governor Hayne. 

Tlie testimony of all history is against the safety 
of the slave-holding system, and as decidedly in favor 
of the safety of emancipation. Every state in this 
Union, which, under the colonial period of our history, 
tolerated slavery, was the scene of repeated insurrec- 
tions, while no state in which slavery has been abolished 
has ever witnessed any insurrectionary tumult of the 
black population.* On the contrary, the free colored 
people have suffered the rude and unmerciful assault 
of mobs throughout the country, within a few months, 
and have conducted themselves, notwithstanding, with 
commendable, and almost unexampled forbearance 
tliroughout the whole scene of outrage. 

St. Domingo, in the year 1794, after five years of in- 
surrections and massacres, received from the French 
Directory the enfranchisement of 500,000 slaves. At 
this time the white population were but 100,000. Here, 
though the negroes were to the whites in the proportion 
of five to one, accustomed to arms and the injured party, 
emancipated, not by their masters but by the French 
government, yet the effect was instant and permanent 
pacification. The Island advanced from one degree 
of improvement to another, and was very soon as pro- 
ductive, as well cultivated and profitable to the land- 
holders themselves, as in any former period of its 
history. This state of things continued until the year 
1802, when Le Clerc, with 30,000 men, sent by Na- 
poleon, under the influence of advisers anxious to regain 
the ascendency of lust and cruelty which they had 

•For a full and interesting account of the different servile insurrections in 
these states by Joshua Coffin, of Philadelphia, see Appendix to Phelps' Lectures 
on Slavery. 



33 

possessed before the period of liberty, began a course 
of murder and devastation unheard of m the history 
of blood. The cruelties which this man practised on 
the colored people of St. Domingo, were in tlie end 
visited on his followers ; and the war of extermination 
which ensued, with the pestilence which assailed the 
oppressors, ended in their total destruction. Since 
that time, the people of Hayti have advanced in the 
arts of peace and of war, in prosperity and refinement. 
Many of her citizens are on a level, in point of cultiva- 
tion and intelligence, with any people in the world : 
whatever prejudice or malice may object to the fact. 

A million and a half of our fellow beings were 
emancipated in Colombia and Mexico, and not a drop 
of blood was shed ; since that day no one has heard 
of any disturbances among the colored people of those 
countries. 

The native gentleness of the negro character is 
therefore as conspicuous in sudden elevation of fortune, 
as in submitting to that most galling and cruel oppres- 
sion which has disgraced Christendom for three hundred 
years — 

'' Since holy men gave scripture for the deed," 

and led the march of pirate nations to the shores of 
Africa. 

The testimony of Mungo Park, of the Landers, and 
of other travellers, agree in representing this injured 
and degraded race, as peculiarly inoffensive, gentle 
and patient in their own country, and this testimony 
is fully corroborated by our knowledge of their patient 
endurance of the complicated wrongs heaped upon 
them here. 

5 



34 

We have no historical evidence that a chop of the 
white man's blood has ever flowed in consequence 
of liberating the slave, and " every day's report" from 
the hundreds of thousands recently emancipated in the 
British West Indies, confirms the safety of the measure : 
to question which is, in some sort, to libel human nature 
itself; for what motive could remain to incite hostility 
in the bosom of a man delivered from the horrors 
of perpetual slavery ? The newly made freemen, ac- 
cording to some accounts, work better than they for- 
merly did in slavery. And though lying newsmakers 
have represented them as turbulent, direct accounts, 
more recent and more respectable, prove exactly the 
reverse. 

As a motive to immediate emancipation we would 
observe, that wherever slavery exists, and human 
beings are bought and sold, slaves are attracted by the 
market, and thence the stimulus of avarice is propa- 
gated even to Africa ; a tide of human wo sets in, a 
tide '■ that knows no ebb," in spite of all those deceitful 
enactments of legislatures, which in words denounce, 
but in fact reward the traffic. 

The foundation of the African slave-trade is unde- 
niably in the market for slaves, and while the latter 
remains, the former will continue. It follows that that 
people who retain the one, whatever may be their 
professions, are the true authors of the other enormity. 

Agahi, immediate emancipation is considered most 
feasible and safe by slave-holders themselves. In 
proof of this we have only to advert to the fact that 
Bermuda, and nine other British Islands, have imme- 
diately emancipated their slaves, rather than adopt the 



35 



system of seven years apprenticeship ; the alternative 
offered them by the parent country. 

Where there is no motive to insurrection, but the 
strongest to gratitude ; where the power to do injury 
is not in the hands of the freedman, but all the means 
of restraint are possessed by their former masters ; 
where learning, legislation, arts, arms, and the habits 
and associations of government are exclusively the 
wiiite man's ; w hat, we ask, is the source of danger 
so loudly deprecated by our opponents, in restoring to 
the slave his rights'? When the negro, accustomed 
to submission and labour, is no longer lashed, but 
rewarded for his toil, what is there to induce him to be 
less industrious than Avhen the fruits of his labor were 
torn from him without compensation 1 Accordingly 
all accounts agree that free labor is more profitable to 
the employer than that of the slave. 

We will close by asking the intelligent reader, if 
there be any thing contrary to sound morals, to de- 
cency, to religion, to correct notions of government, to 
the doctrine of "unalienable rights," * to expediency, to 
the duty of citizens of the United States tow^ards the 
slave-holders ; in a plan for the improvement of the 
colored people, which shall abrogate the system of com- 
pulsory, perpetual, hereditary, unrequited labor, and 
substitute in its place the just rewards which stimulate 
honorable toil all over the civilized world ? which 
shall raise the slave from the state of brutal degradation 
into which oppression has .sunk him, to the protection, 
elevation and proper responsibility of a citizen 1 

What danger will there be, in admitting the testi- 

* Declaration of Independence. 



36 

mony of a man, without regard to complexion 1 will he 
feel insulted or injured? 

Will the protection of female virtue by the majesty 
of the law, stimulate to phrenzy the brain of the black 
man? 

Will it endanger the happiness aod peace of society 
to permit the liberty of conscience, of speech, and of the 
press, to native Americans, whatever be the hue of their 
complexion? 

Will the preaching of the gospel of peace send dis- 
cord into the heathen breast of ignorance ? 

Will it endanger the Republic, if we hold no more 
auctions for human cattle ? if our white citizens should 
cease to sell their own flesh and blood into slavery ? 

Would the curse of God come on our land, if marriage, 
which is '• honorable in all,' should be sanctioned and 
protected among the colored race ? 

If the tender and dear relations of life should be 
protected by law from ruthless sundering ? 

If the trade in "slaves and the souls of men"' should 
cease '• among the several states' by the wise and just 
legislation of Congress, according to the express words 
of the Constitution, as w-ell as the spirit of the gospel 
of peace and good will to men ? 

If torture and scoiu-ging, men-hunting and legalized 
murder should no more exist unpunished and even 
sanctioned ? 

If the land and its inhabitants should rid themselves, 
by repentance, of God's curse on them who "take theii- 
neighbor's service without wages ; that give him not 
for his work." 

If pollution and violence should no longer be tolera- 
ted ; but men should begin to give evidence of loving 



37 

their neighbors as themselves, and of some sincerity in 
the profession of the American principle, that " all 
men are created equal." 

If all this should happen, and no danger follow to 
our homes, our country or our persons, then Immediate 
Emancipation is safe ; because these alterations in the 
present state of slavery, define its nature and constitute 
its essence. 

There would be no general change in the state of 
society; the same laborers would remain on the same 
plantations, subject to the same masters; and any 
slight changes would occur as amongst servants in 
free countries, by mutual consent of master and servant. 

To the young men of our country we look with in- 
tense interest. On them will soon fall the responsi- 
bility and the glory of this great work. If they imbibe 
the short-sighted and selfish principles of a dark age, 
not only will the progress of this great work be re- 
tarded, but the glory of America will set in the night 
of nations. Her epitaph will quickly be written : 

She was free, — 

but denying to her own citizens 

the justice she claimed of others, 

THE God of Retribution 

HAS 

OVERWHELMED HER 

WITH 

HIS VENGEANCE. 

But " we hope better things, though we thus speak." 
We pray God to deliver our guilty land ! May we learn 
to leave off oppression, to break the bonds of wicked- 
ness, and to let the oppressed go free; then will liberty, 



38 

peace, equality, and the blessing of the Divine favor, 
rest upon our country forever, 

" Spirit of Freedom, on ! 
Oh, pause not in thy flight, 

'Till every clime is won, 
To worship in thy light. 

On, 'till thy name is known, 
Throughout the peopled earth ! 

On, 'till thou reign' St alone, 
Man's heritage by birth ! 

On, 'till from every valo 
And where the mountains rise, 

The beacon light of 'Liberty' 
Shall kindle to the skies." 



CONSTITUTION 

OFTHS 

NEW-YORK YOUNG MEN's 

ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 

AaxicLE I. This Society shall be styled the New-York Young Men's Anti- Slavery 
Society, and shall be auxiliary to the "American Anti-Shivcry Society." 

Art. II. Any young man may become a member of this society by subscribing to 
these articles, and shall be entitled to vote at its meetings ; contribution to its funds 
being left to the option of each subscriber. 

Art. III. The officers of this society shall consist of a President, two Vice 
Presidents, a Corresponding and Recording Secretary, a Treasurer, and twenty 
Managers, who together shall constitute a Board of Directors ; to be elected annually 
by the Society, and shall have the power to form their own By-Laws, and to fill all 
vacancies in their body. 

Art. IV. It shall be the duty of the President, (or in his absence, one of the Vice 
Presidents,) to preside at all meetings of the society, and of the Board of Directors. 

Art. V. It shall be the duty of the Corresponding Secretary to conduct the cor- 
respondence, prepare the Annual Report, and perform such other services as may be 
required of him by the Board. 

Art. VI. It shall be the duty of the Recording Secretary to keep the minutes of the 
society, to file all its papers, to give notice of its meetings, and to register the names 
of its members. 

Art. VII. It shall be the duty of the Treasurer to receive and disburse the funds 
of the society by authority of the Board of Directors. 

Art. VIII. The foregoing officers shall constitute the Executive Committee of the 
society, to whom shall be entrusted the disposition of the society's funds, and the 
general management of its affairs. Nine shall constitute a quorum. 

Art. IX. The object of this society shall be to promote the entire abolition of 
slavery in the United States, by collecting and diffusing information concernng its 
true character ; by endeavoring to convince our countrymen, by arguments addressed 
to their understanding and consciences, that slave-holding is a heinous crime in the 
sight of God, and that the duty, safety, and best interests of all concerned, require its 
immediate and unconditional abandonment. 

Art. X. This society shall aim to elevate the character and condition of the people 
of color by encouraging their intellectual, moral and rehgious improvement, and by 
correcting the prejudice of pubhc opinion ; but never to countenance the oppressed in 
vindicating their rights by resorting to physical force. 

Art. XI. It shall be the especial duty of the Board of Directors to employ their 
best endeavours to obtain the signatures of as many young men of the city of New- 
York as may be disposed to join the association, and also to report this Society to the 
Secretary of the American Society. 

Art. XII. This society shall meet as occasion may require, at the call of the 
Board of Directors, and annually, at such time and place as the Board shall appoint, 
■when their report shall be read, the accounts of the Treasurer be presented, appropriate 
addresses delivered, and the officers chosen. 

Art. XIII. This Constitution may be altered or amended by a vote of two-thirds- 
of the members present at an annual meeting. 



LIST OF OFFICERS. 

ABRAHAM L. COX, M. D., President, 
THERON T. POND, 1st Vice President, 
ROBERT F. WINSLOW, 2d Vice President, 
JAMES F. ROBINSON, Corresponding Secretary, 
EDWARD A. LAMBERT, Recording Secretary, 
JOHN WILEY, Treasurer. 

MANAGERS. 



Geohge p. Fitch, 
John Jay, 

Thomas W. B. Dawson, 
HEN-nv F. Brayton, 

WiLILAM HOMMANN, 

William S. Ross, 
Daniel Chase, 
Ebenezer H. Burgeb, 
KiciiARn L. Clauk, 



Ishael VV. Clabk, 
Wm. Steele, M. D., 
James Kennedy, M. D., 
John Bvrdell, 
Alexander Peloitjet, 
William R. Sutton, 
James H. Parker, 
Jeremiah Wilbub, 
George A. Dwight. 



54 W 











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